I saw the recent news post about the 6th game in the series being announced for the PSP and I thought I'd start up a thread for discussion of the series. As luck would have it, the PC Chinese versions of the 6th game just came out in Taiwan a week or two ago. Here are my thoughts about it based on the five hours or so I've played.

Graphics - Looks pretty similar to Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (not surprising since they're both Falcom games). Colorful, not too fancy 3D graphics + 2D sprites. I love the artwork for the characters and some of the special moves are fun to watch, but other than that, the game isn't too exciting in this department.

Music - Enjoyable, but none of the songs have really stuck out.

Sound - No Voice Acting sadly.

Gameplay - Quality old school gaming here. Battles remind me of a turn based Grandia. It's got a cool system where you equip crystals to a grid (which is different for each character) in order to use magic. In addition to magic, each person learns various personal abilities which can be used by spending TP - TP is gained by attacking enemies and by being attacked. There's a ton of optional quests due to the way the story is set up (you work in an adventurer's guild like in Arc the Lad 2) and surprisingly the optional quests are more entertaining than you might expect. Difficulty has been decent with a mix of easy and hard battles (inevitable with so much optional stuff).

Story - I like the two main characters. The heroine and main character is very similar to Prier from La Pucelle Tactics but more likeable. The main guy (her brother, but adopted) is responsible and introspective. At least in the Chinese version, their personalities really have come alive so far despite their cliches. So far, I haven't really come to any major plot beyond them becoming full fledged members of the adventurer guild and the heroine's father being summoned away to a distant land on some important mission.

Overall, I'm really enjoying the game. The fact that it only cost $30 for the deluxe edition with music CD, character pictures, and a very nice 200+ page full color art book was very cool. Hopefully the PSP port of the 6th game won't have major loading problems and will get picked up for the US.

Nope, it has not been announced for a US release. Problem is, Namco Bandai has an odd strategy of releasing Eiyuu Densetsu games in the US. First they release the second Gagharv triology game as Legend of Heroes in the US, only to release the first game as Legend of Heroes II. So, it remains to be seen, whether they choose to release the final game of the triology to the US, after releasing Legend of Heroes II this summer. So you will have to wait and see. After all, Eiyuu Densetsu VI will only hit Japan in late September.

Sadly the majority of the more than two dozen PSP RPGs already available in Japan are ports and remakes, but there are same original games as well. However the majority of those games have not seen US releases. From the original stuff only Tenchi no Mon (Kingdom of Paradise) and Bounty Hounds have seen a Stateside releases with Blade Dancer to follow suit. However, arguably more interesting games like Twelve, Innocent Life: Shin Bokujou Monogatari and in particular Kouji Okada's Jewel Summoner remain Japan-exclusive for the time being.